Posted on April 29, 2021May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Electronic Aiding of Stringed Instrument Sound Comment on Electronic Aiding of Stringed Instrument Sound by R.W. Burhans Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #10, 1975 Introduction In perspective we should view modern sound reproduction as an “Electronic Art” which requires somewhat different types of skills than the “Mechanical Art” developed by the Luthier. The same type of careful attention to detail are required in both and there is no substitute for long hours at the workbench with a lot of reading of the literature published in periodicals like: Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics, Rolling Stone, Guitar Player, Electronotes Newsletter, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, and even Scientific American. There is even a trade quarterly circulated to music shops, Musical Product News and Musical Electronics, which is a sales promotion and product announcement type with information on the myread of stuff on the current market. Still others are dB the sound studio engineers magazine, a magazine called Audio, and another DB, Down Beat. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 2, 2020May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Gimme Back My Minutes Gimme Back My Minutes by Rick Turner previously published in American Lutherie #26, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 I’d like to share a couple of things with those in the repair business: how I handle the financial end of repair work, and what I’m trying to do to gain back some of the eight to ten hours a week I currently lose talking to customers. I do repair work for Westwood Music in Los Angeles, working as an independent contractor. I set my own hours, use my own tools, pay for my own worker’s compensation insurance, and establish the prices for the repair work. There is one other part-time repairman, David Neely, and he works the same way I do. Prices for repair work are set for each job either by direct quote from our price list or an estimate of time at $50 per hour. On big jobs or for building custom Strats from generic parts I drop the hourly to $45; I figure there’s less time wasted talking on bigger jobs. Our store sales people sometimes take in the work (the more of that the better), and they might make a ballpark estimate. We in the shop usually call the customer to give a closer price and/or suggest additional needed work. When the job is complete, I fill out a four-part sequentially-numbered store invoice which includes labor, retail-parts cost (at the net-to-musician price — we figure any applicable discounts), sales tax, and the invoice total. I keep a copy which I use to bill the store, and the second copy goes on a clipboard in sequential order. The instrument, along with the two remaining copies, is put in the front of the store in the “to be picked up” pile. When the customer picks up the instrument, he or she gets a copy, and the remaining copy is filed with the store’s daily receipts. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 19, 2010September 9, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Shoptalk 6 Review: Shoptalk 6 Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #73, 2003 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Shoptalk 6 Stewart-MacDonald Video, 90 minutes, 2002 www.stewmac.com I look forward to each new edition of the Shoptalk videos. They show off the new Stew-Mac tools in the best soft-sell manner by simply demonstrating how they work in a real guitar shop; and on top of that there is always plenty of good randomly gathered information that has nothing to do with selling stuff. The camera work has become excellent, Stew-Mac has developed a fine team of on-camera luthiers, and the cost of the videos is always too low to pass up. You couldn’t beat that combination with a stick. Dan Erlewine leads off with an exhibition of nifty new tools. The BridgeSaver is a set of small hand tools used to repair worn bridge plates and to restore the bridge-pin area of guitar tops. Removing a shot bridge plate has become a last-ditch effort that is frowned upon by vintage folks who wish to maintain instrument originality as much as possible, and by luthiers because it is time consuming and sometimes dangerous to the guitar top. The BridgeSaver removes wood around wallowed-out or misplaced bridge-plate material and/or top material and cuts a mating disk of new wood (not included) to precisely mate with the newly formed hole. The exact procedure is better seen than described. The catalog pictures are good enough to give you the idea, but the video ought to light you up if you’ve done any old-style bridge-plate work in the past. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 14, 2010May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Getting a Bigger Sound: Pickups and Microphones for Your Musical Instrument by Bart Hopkin with Robert Cain and Jason Lollar Review: Getting a Bigger Sound: Pickups and Microphones for Your Musical Instrument by Bart Hopkin with Robert Cain and Jason Lollar Reviewed by Fred Carlson Originally published in American Lutherie #74, 2003 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015 Getting a Bigger Sound: Pickups and Microphones for Your Musical Instrument Bart Hopkin with Robert Cain and Jason Lollar ISBN 0-9727313-0-X Nicasio, CA: Experimental Musical Instruments, 104 pp., 2002 www.windworld.com I know I’m not the only electronically challenged luthier who’s been waiting for someone to write an understandable, useful handbook on pickups, microphones, and instrument amplification. I’d been envisioning the author to be lutherie renaissance-man Rick Turner, who wrote the fine “Electronic Answer Man” columns for American Lutherie in years past. I know how busy Rick is, but I remain ever-hopeful that pressure from the lutherie community will drive him to it someday. In the meantime, another of my musical instrument heroes has come out with his take on such a manual, and I’m happy to say it goes a long way toward filling the void in useful introductions to this subject. Bart Hopkins’ take on the adventure of electronically amplifying a musical instrument is undoubtedly coming from a different perspective than one from which a more guitar-oriented writer like Rick Turner would approach it. Bart has spent many years spearheading Experimental Musical Instruments, an organization devoted to interesting and unusual musical instruments of all sorts. For many years, EMI published a journal of the same name that featured all sorts of amazing stuff from the wonderful, quirky, experimental underside of instrument building. Bart did writing and illustrating for the journal as well as editing and publishing duties. He’s also an active guitarist and creative instrument builder/inventor with experience and interests covering a broad spectrum of the music world. Since EMI’s journal ceased publication in 1999, Bart has kept the organization alive as a source of back issues. EMI also offers recordings of many of the wild and wonderful creations featured in the journals’ pages, as well as several books Bart has written on instrument design and building. Recently the EMI catalog has added pickups and pickup components and materials to its stable of offerings. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 12, 2010May 29, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Installing Transducer Pickup Systems by Dan Erlewine Review: Installing Transducer Pickup Systems by Dan Erlewine Reviewed by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #65, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Video: Installing Transducer Pickup Systems Dan Erlewine Stewart-MacDonald, 1999 The music stores for which I used to do guitar repairs used to sell transducers at a hefty discount, then charge a flat $25 installation fee. Their normal hourly rate was $33. It’s easy to put in a transducer in an hour or less. Making it function properly is another matter, and many of those guitars came back for adjustments that would never have been necessary had the time been granted to do the job right in the first place. This video is about doing the job right the first time. The guitar top is precisely jacked up to simulate string tension, the saddle slot is routed accurately and with a flat bottom, a new saddle is made, and adjustments are made to the bridge to correct the string angle as it comes off the saddle. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
